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Bastian Faust Research Paper

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It was December 23,1944.Obergefreiter Bastian Faust was marching through the great Ardennes forest that ran along the Belgian-Germany Border.The force he marched with was so large that the towns that had been previously occupied by the allies they had passed through were believing it to be the second Blitzkrieg, and were already hanging the flags of Nazi Germany outside of their houses. Without firing a shot the landscape they marched through changed to their control. However, Belgium would soon become the site of one of the largest battles in the history of the war, but not near the bloodiest. Across the Oder river the Red Army marched towards Berlin killing any and all Wehrmacht soldiers that were unlucky enough to be caught between them …show more content…

Bastian was all too familiar with this scenario except this time the force he marched with was small with only a handful of troops when compared to his original group. Not to mention there were no towns for them to stop at or people for them to talk to just a straight march.
This time it was Bastian who fired the first shot. When they became close to the allied line, the sky was dark and many were asleep in the camp. So, Bastian and his men left the panzers far enough away that those still awake could not hear them and then sneaked closer to the trenches. When he got close enough to clearly make out the back of an american soldier’s head, he quietly raised his rifle in the air, lowered it until it the sights were centered at the base of the man’s hair, and pulled the trigger.
As the shot rang in his ears the soldier’s body slumped forward, face smearing blood onto the soldier next to him, leaving him with an expression of sheer terror as over one-hundred-fifty wehrmacht soldiers charge from the trees toward the forward trenches and foxholes screaming ”Für das Vaterland!” . (for the …show more content…

“When will they arrive?”
“Any second-.” the operator began to say as a shell ripped through the air over their heads into the trench ahead of them.The panzers knocked trees out of their way as they advanced towards the allied defenses.
However, Hauptmann Saller opened the hatch on the top of the panzer’s turret and as he rose out of it was hit with several shots and collapsed over the side of the turret. He was not the only one to fall either. Oberfeldwebel Schöler was killed when he looked over the trench wall and a grenade exploded in front of him taking his entire upper body with it. Now that Schöler and Saller were dead, Bastian and Schwarz were left to command what was left of the three companies. What had once been near one-hundred-eighty men was now little more than fifty, as Bastian soon realized.
The panzers still hammered the forward trenches, but they could not see where the fire was truly coming from through the dust and

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